


To break a man

by Little_Firestar84



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Lazarus Pit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 08:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3440834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Firestar84/pseuds/Little_Firestar84
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To break a man, you don't kill him- you break down his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To break a man

Since the day she was born, Nyssa had always trusted her father- and was aware that, even if she didn’t, she owed him her uttermost loyalty. 

A long time before, she had thought that it meant something, until it didn’t any longer, and in the blink of an eye she had gone from beloved daughter to just “a daughter”; of course she had never thought possible for her to be heir to Demon’s Head, and obviously not because she was a woman (her father was more enlightened than that, after all).

At first, it was because of Talia, older sister, firstborn to Ra’s. But then, Talia had gone and lost her mind because of that man her father had trained- that Dark Night- and she had tried to kill her own father. Tried to use her son – hers and the Knight’s – as a pawn in her game. But it had been all for nothing, when the young man who owed her and The League his second chance at life had betrayed her, making sure that she would die. 

And now, now, because she had dared to love a woman, an outsider on top of that, Nyssa had been robbed of her chance of following into her father’s footsteps. 

Because her father dared to think Queen, of all men, worthy of the title. 

Queen. The man who was protecting the ones responsible for Sara’s death. 

Queen. The vigilante who had dared to fight her father. 

Queen. The man who had accepted the challenge of being the new lord of the League of Assassins, and who had obtained the Merlyn’s freedom in exchange. 

It wasn’t right, but rarely her life had been so. 

Besides, she had learnt from the best. Her father had told her that vengeance was justice, and her sister had passed on the knowledge that there are better ways to break a man than killing him. 

Talia had given her the idea. 

Her father had given her the means to pursue it.

She grinned, as she felt the man’s presence at her back,the cold metal of his blade against the tender skin of her neck. “Nyssa. Stop now.” He simply said. It wasn’t a plea- it was an order, but she didn’t care. 

There was no stopping now.“It’s too late, father.” She was proud of herself. For the first time in her life, arrogant when talking with him. 

It felt good. maybe too good- and she wondered if it wasn’t going to be her damnation, her end. 

Ra’s shook his head and left, ready to keep this secret from his heir until the time didn’t come; he knew the rules, knew what Lazarus’s Pit could do and how. The young man was going to be Nyssa’s problem, as she alone had decided to bring him back; she alone could control the beast he had become, channel his life-force in the right way so that one day he could eventually walk the Earth again, was he to decide to abandon the League. 

Nyssa didn’t need to know what was going through her father’s head; she simply went closer and closer to the man who was emerging from the boiling waters of the Pit, fear as clear in his eyes as he was a wild animal- and maybe, in that instant, he was. 

She cupped his cheek, and like he was a child and she his mother, he leaned in her touch, and felt safe and protected, maybe for the first time in his life- or at least, in a long time.

“There are worst things to do to a man than killing him,” she simply said, a sadistic grin printed on her otherwise sweet features. “And you, my dear, will be my instrument in your father’s downfall, Tommy Merlyn…” 

**Author's Note:**

> This little thing takes a lot from the batman fandom as tematic and mentions; there, in 2005 "Under the Red Hood" and "Red Hood: The lost days", Ra's first daughter, Talia, in an attempt to win over Batman's affection, she brought back to life his protegè, The Second Robin, Jason Todd. There it was explained how being revived by the Pit (as opposite to what Ra's does, merely regenerating himself whn he is still alive) would bring a sort of madness to the people who's been brought back from the death. Talia herslelf, infact, helped Jason, by training him and teaching him everything she could. The sentence that gives the title to the story, instead, was uttered by a character in one of the episodes of Season 3 of The Mentalist.


End file.
